cannot reproduce The A.I. do not adhere to the laws of physics.

TK-421 · March 4, 2023

Okay so I wasn't entirely sure where to put this but I feel this is most appropriate. So playing through mission 5 of the Blue Nosed Bastard campaign I reached the point where you engage the Bf 109s. I managed to put one on fire, got some good strikes on another etc but there was one in particular where I watched his propeller stop and thought “yep he’s done” and turned off.

On the way back I fell victim to the insanely accurate A.I. gunnery and had to ditch (crash) in the water. I was watching my kill feed waiting to see if that Bf 109 I killed the engine on would crash, but he never did. So I pressed F2 and found him…

The guy was literally flying in circles with a dead propeller, and I don’t mean circling and losing altitude in a glide, he was just circling with a dead engine and never lost a single foot, or meter in the Germans case. It was like he had some form of invisible thrust that combined with a perfect AoA, he could just stay up there forever, plane shot to pieces and a propeller seized in place. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I just watched him for a while and he never lost speed or altitude. Then I pressed F2 again…

The second Bf 109 I saw shocked me, he was flying UPSIDE DOWN with a dead engine and one landing gear wheel down (or up? In this case). I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was insane! As before he seemed to have this invisible thrust and would never lose altitude at all, heck he even gained some altitude at times trying to rejoin formation with the other guy. Then I pressed F2 again…

There was another Bf 109 again UPSIDE DOWN with a dead engine (feathering), like the other guy he just kept going, flying gently with never losing speed or altitude!

Three Bf 109s in one game that were defying the laws of physics, there is no way in hell anyone, even with the A.I.s perfect flying skills can keep a plane like that in the air. This is absolutely broken! I do not think there is anything wrong with the damage model, but the issue lies with the UFO-like abilities of the A.I.

I tried to get a screenshot of all three aircraft but I was playing VR, and every time I pressed 12 it put me to a static object? I did save the track though, which is almost next to useless as it doesn’t exactly replay what happened, but I did manage to capture another upside down Bf 109 which sorta shows what I saw. This guy had a feathered prop and was flying like this for ages.

Next time I encounter this I will get more screen shots, I figured out if I just delete the F12 key bind I can take screen shots again, albeit poor quality VR ones.

UFO Bf 109.trk

Edited March 4, 2023 by TK-421

razo+r · March 4, 2023

Its kind of know that the AI does things it shouldnt be able to do.

ED is working on a new FM for the AI that will hopefully fix most of these issues. But nobody knows when that will be and all we can do is wait and continue to play with/against this rather questionable AI.

Edited March 4, 2023 by razo+r

71st_AH Rob · March 4, 2023

This is not an AI issue or a FM issue but it is a bug that showed up a about year ago I think.

Are you on the latest Open Beta?

Do you have any mods installed?

TK-421 · March 4, 2023

6 hours ago, 71st_AH Rob said:

This is not an AI issue or a FM issue but it is a bug that showed up a about year ago I think.

Are you on the latest Open Beta?

Do you have any mods installed?

Yes I am on the latest Open Beta via Steam

I do not have any aircraft mods installed.

71st_AH Rob · March 5, 2023

So I watched your track and it did not play out as you described. While you were attacking ground targets you were hit by 20mm FLAK and lost control hitting the ground so you never got to the 109s. I didn't see any of the odd behaviour that you listed, I did see a 109 fly upside-down while on fire, which they often do before bailing out which the pilot did.

There was one Mustang of Acorn flight that behaved a bit out of sync but I think that was just the length of the track.

I'm not sure what to tell you if you don't have any mods or your version is up to date except try a long repair and try again, this was a bug a while ago but I have not seen it since it was fixed. If you check reflected's forum and search about a year ago you might find posts about it.

TK-421 · March 7, 2023

On 3/5/2023 at 11:11 AM, 71st_AH Rob said:

So I watched your track and it did not play out as you described. While you were attacking ground targets you were hit by 20mm FLAK and lost control hitting the ground so you never got to the 109s. I didn't see any of the odd behaviour that you listed, I did see a 109 fly upside-down while on fire, which they often do before bailing out which the pilot did.

There was one Mustang of Acorn flight that behaved a bit out of sync but I think that was just the length of the track.

I'm not sure what to tell you if you don't have any mods or your version is up to date except try a long repair and try again, this was a bug a while ago but I have not seen it since it was fixed. If you check reflected's forum and search about a year ago you might find posts about it.

Yeah as I said before the track system is useless, it never plays out exactly what happens, it only tells the A.I. to follow your same movements and tries to replicate it. So while I never got hit by 20mm flak the A.I. version of me did, I when I tried to play it back my plane was shooting at imaginary air targets and couldn't pull out of a dive. It did happen again though on my last play through.

You can see the smoke trail of him gaining altitude, he was upside down from the coast.

Thanks for the help anyway, I'll run a repair and see if it fixes anything.